The Secret Life of Trees

Over the last few decades, scientists have learned that trees and plants in a forest and even plants growing near each other communicate, and often help each other out.  While competition does happen, it is very clear that collaboration also happens.

Different tree species will exchange water, food and other nutrients with the help of mycorrhizal fungi – fungi which penetrate the roots of many different plants and form a mutually beneficial partnership with those plants.  The fungi help the plants take up nutrients that they need, and the plants supply the fungi with sugars. It turns out that the fungi also help the plants to communicate by transporting excess food, nutrients and other chemicals between them. 

The direction of the exchange depends on the season and on the age of the trees and their place in the forest. 

It turns out that older trees send significant amounts to their children growing around them, and can pass on messages about how to survive drought or attack by insects or even unfriendly fungi.  It also seems that they can distinguish which plants the different messages go to. 

So next time you are in a forest, or even a group of trees think about the communications that will be going on under your feet. 

If you want to find out more, google wood wide web and find many talks, videos and articles about this online.  You could also get Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard out of the library.